Episode Transcript
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The views expressed in the following programare those of the participants and do not
necessarily reflect the views of SAGA ninesixty AM or its management. Good evening,
everyone, and welcome to the BrianCrime You Radio Hour on SAGA ninety
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sixty. Today. The topic isthe future of Crusissaga city planning and also
frankly cities you know, I thinkelsewhere across Canada. Our guest is Brent
Totterant. He is really quite aninteresting gentleman. He has had a successful
career, very successful career as thechief planner in the city of Vancouver.
Before that, he was with Calgary. Before that, he was in Ontario
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and in the last couple of yearshe's launched his own independent consulting firm on
city planning and he speaks around theworld about what we should be doing in
regards to city planning. There's almosta thousand people, over nine hundred people
that on Wednesday night came out toLibin Art Center, Vesissaga to listen to
him speak about what we got todo in the next fifty years in Mississauga.
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Brent todter Welcome to the show,SIRT, my pleasure, nice to
be here. My pleasure because Ithought it was a really interesting conversation.
I was in the audience and itwas interesting. You addressed a lot of
sort of some of the big issuesthat have been topical in Mississauga, particularly
at community meetings and city planning andthings like that in regards to height,
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density, parking ratios and other things, and made some interesting comments in regards
to people shouldn't be as worried aboutheightened density as I think often they are.
Tell me if you could a littlebit about that point that you tried
to make. Well, First ofall, I did cover a lot of
ground, but I started it,and I start all my presentations by connecting
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the dots to the bigger picture whywe even need to have a conversation about
changing our cities. And I callthem the five crises that every city,
not only in Canada but around theworld facing and trying to tackle through better
city making. The climate crisis,the housing crisis, the social equity,
racism and classism crisis that plays outand how we plan and zone and design
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our cities and communities. The publichealth crisis that is about how we've designed
physical activity out of our cities andparticularly our suburbs and made them largely car
dependent, and the public infrastructure costcrisis with its crippling per capita infrastructure costs
that really have to do with howwe've been planning low density, separated,
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car dependent places that are the mostexpensive places we've ever built from a public
cost perspective because of how much infrastructurethey take and actually how relatively little tax
generation they produce. And that leadsto the conversations we have in almost every
budget cycle about the potential for increasinglynow double digit tax increases. So all
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of these five crises are playing out, and a big part of the solution
of all five is how we buildour cities and particularly our suburbs. So
yes, I talk about density andurban design and height and transportation and the
car. I talk a lot aboutthe future of cars. It's not an
anti car message, but it's ananti car dependency message. Surely we can't
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have the cars the only rational choicein our cities and suburbs. And I
talk about urban biking, I talkabout public transit, I talk about walkable
cities. I talk about a lotof different things, but I connected ots
constantly to those five crises. AndI part of my work. I get
called in by cities that want todo it differently, that want to have
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a more responsible city building and suburbbuilding, but they don't necessarily know how
to do that or where to start, and they also want to have a
different conversation with their community about it. So yes, to get to your
specific question, I often talk aboutwhat I call a fear of heights.
There's a lot of cities out therethat are ideologically or even dogmatically afraid of
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tall buildings. Often the only conversationwe have about urban design and cities is
whether the buildings are tall or lesstall, instead of having a conversation about
all the elements of good urban design. So I do challenge cities to think
about how we do buildings of everyscale, short, medium, and tall
better in a way that strengthens thestreets, promotes walkability, does all connects
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the dots to all those public interestsand all those crises. And just one,
just one of the elements is howtall the buildings might be. But
I don't need to tell you that. Often a lot of the conversation comes
down to maybe three things, howtall the building is, the parking and
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just the cars in general, andwhether or not whether or not you can
add fit more cars. As you'retrying to fit more people into our cities.
Why has height become this big issue? You know, I've spoken to
several of an architects and I don'tknow if you agree with them, but
they've told me that after five orsix stories, people can't really tell how
tall the building is. They don'treally notice it, that the scale on
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the street is the first few floors. And I think you talked about podiums
a little bit and and not havingblank walls and things like that in your
talk. And you know, I'vetalked to developers and and and architects that
say, if we want to increasedensity, the easiest way to get it
is add ten stories. Well,especially if you're already doing a building like
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a podium, and then you're goingtaller because as many will say, being
taller doesn't necessarily mean being denser becausemaybe you're not using the whole site.
But you know that the truth ofthe matter in most cases is if you're
going taller, the best reason togo taller is to add your density,
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add more people, get more peopleon less land, and support public transit,
support more complete communities. Where youhave the population density to have local
grocery stores and local schools and localdaycare instead of having to drive further distances.
But it's funny you would say thatthat. You've heard architects say that
there's a lot of ideology and dogmain the professional classes around height. There
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are some who say what you justsaid, you can't really tell much about
the building over the first few floors. There's other architects. There's literally a
famous architect out there who says there'sa special level of hell dedicated to architects
who design buildings over five floors,and that is ridiculous, dogma, ridiculous,
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and so that ideology gets in theway of better design. The truth
is neither of those statements is true. It's not evil to do taller buildings.
And also you often can really obviouslynotice that a building is taller above
the first couple floors. The keyvariable is designed. If you design a
good tall building, it works reallywell. Vancouver and I don't try to
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talk I try these days not totalk too much about Vancouver because I often
get the oh, look, it'sthe Vancouver guy coming to town, and
he's gonna, you know, tellus, we should be like Vancouver.
I've worked in probably five hundred citiesaround the world, including many that frankly
do planning and design and multimobility betterthan Vancouver does. But what Vancouver has
done particularly well. One of thethings that made Vancouver the model, the
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Vancouver model of city building famous isthey took a podium, a mid rise
podium, three four, five,six stories. That creates what we in
the business call the human scale,and that gives you the sense of your
environment when you're on the street.You have good active uses at grade at
eye level, the stores or theor the entrances to homes. That is
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interesting and provides what are called eyeson the street for safety. The scale
of the midrise buildings sort of framethe street almost like an urban room.
And then the tall towers in Vancouverare stepped back, they're separated from each
other, and they're thin. They'rethinner generally, and Mississauga's are very much
like Vancouver's because Mississauga copied Vancouver's modeland so does that very well. And
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so the idea is that the tallbuildings aren't what create your experience at the
street. It's the midrise buildings andyou get the benefit of the density of
the tall buildings and you get thebenefit of the scale of the midrise buildings,
and it's sort of the best ofboth worlds. It's literally the reason
other than things like green building designand good public transit and walking biking,
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it's that building model that has reallymade Vancouver not just North American famous,
but world famous, because that modelworks particularly well. And it's if you're
going to do height. I've evenheard some of the most famous naysayers of
tall buildings in the world, famousurban design and architectural naysayers, will literally
say, and they've said it tome, I still don't like tall buildings,
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but if cities do tall buildings,they should do them like Vancouver does,
because there is a better way todo tall buildings. By the way,
I often point out that, yes, there are horrible tall buildings out
there. I showed examples in mypresentation you recall, but there's also horrible
mid rise buildings out there and horribleshort buildings out there. So the key
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is to make sure that you dogood design that's very urban as opposed to
suburban. It strengthens your city,your neighborhood, your street, your block
instead of turning its back to themwith blank walls and harsh treatment to the
sidewalk in the pedestrian. So alot of this is about architectural design,
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urban realm design, public realm design, urban design, and how to do
density well. Part of my messageon Wednesday was the elements of how to
do density well and also how todo height well. We've got this issue
in Mississauga. Clearly, we've gota housing crisis, which is one of
the crises that you identified, andMississauga still has a little bit of land
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available, but not much. It'spretty built out with single family homes over
covering the vast majority of the ofthe land. And we do have the
benefit of Go train access to downtownToronto and the here on Tarrail Arty that
is under construction right now. Sowe've got higher order transit and transit stations
available. And I presume one ofthe things that you're recommending is that we
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build height around those transit nodes.How do we build good height around those
transit nodes, and how do wehow do we combat or deal with the
neighborhood opposition to that height around thoseneighborhoods, And you know, there's been
big opposition to height around the PoorCredit Go train station, around the Cooksville
Go train station, around the ClarksonGo Go train station, et cetera.
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And those are you know, gotrain stations with thousands and thousands of people
that are jumping on the train togo to work. In downtown Toronto.
Well, in Mississaugu's downtown, youwant density and you want height, you
want people living there. And boy, I'll tell you I've been doing downtown
revitalization for thirty two years most ofmy career, and Downtown's are particularly struggling
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post pandemic because of the body blowsthat they took during the pandemic, but
also because of the transformative change aroundwork from home. So one of the
underpinnings of urban places that those areplaces where people go to work. Well
that's been shaken by the work fromhome phenomenon and nobody's really sure how that's
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going to settle. Yet it's stillin flux. And I often say anybody
who says they know exactly how that'sgoing to end up is wrong. But
I just don't know by how muchin what direction. So you need to
make sure that you have created nimblestrategies. But we know that more housing
because you're going to have less officeit brings people there to make the downtown
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vibrant, not just during the workday, but all day, all night,
on weekends, all year, etc. So it brings body heat that creates
life in your downtown in your urbanplaces. The same is true in your
other urban places, not just yourdowntown. Because Mississauga is a former suburb
that is still has many suburban parts, but it has many urban parts now
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too, and those urban parts aregetting better every year. They're getting a
little less car dependent, a littlemore walkable, bikeable, complete, etc.
And one of the reasons you wantthat completeness is so that people don't
have to own a car to gofar. But it's also tied to that
transit infrastructure. And you mentioned gotrain, but of course the hero Ontario
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LRT is open. They just referencedthat the Ford government seems to be putting
the downtown loop back on the tablein terms of that really really important infrastructures.
The Bloor Street bike lane was justpassed, extremely controversial, but every
smart city in North America is havingthe conversation about urban biking as a way
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as a part of the multimodal citybuilding. Hamilton just announced that they're going
to be doubling the speed of theirimplementation of biking infrastructure. So the cities
you're competing with are frankly outpacing Mississaugaon some of these proven smart things.
So all of these conversations are happeningat once, and a lot of it
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is landing right around the GO trainstation areas and the LRT station areas,
and even your BRT. You've gotBRT too. So you're a city that's
becoming more and more mixed juice,more and more multimodal, more and more
choice. Less car dependency doesn't meanyou won't or can't drive, but it
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means you don't have to drive foreverything. And maybe you don't need the
second or third car, and maybeyou have an elect bike in one car
or even two. You know,there's all sorts of household scenarios that are
starting to play out because Mississauga isevolving. It's really and when you say
how do you address that pushback,Well, infrastructure for transit is a game
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changer. There's just no way thatgovernments invest millions or even billions of dollars
on infrastructure and then say, well, but we're going to keep it low
density and thus not have the ridershipthat actually makes that infrastructure pay off.
So it's like peanut butter and jelly. The density and transit they need each
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other, they work together, theyalways go together. So whether or not
it's it's a particular approach to heightbecause height is one way to do density.
You could do what are called perimeterblock twelve story buildings, or you
could do thinner twenty five story buildings, and you wouldn't necessarily want to do
the exact same approach in Cooksville versusPort Credit. You know there's going to
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be some content, extra conversations,but what there won't be is an ability
to say, no, thanks,we don't want density next to our LRT
station. We don't want density nextto our our go train station, because
it's one of the great no brainersand it's one of the great must haves
in city buildings. So you're goingto get density. The question is are
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you going to do it well ornot. Wait, we got to take
a break for some messages and we'regoing to be back in two minutes with
Brent Totter and talking about the futurecities and the future of Mississauga and what
makes economic sense. Stay with us, everyone back in two minutes stream us
Live at SAGA nine to six amdot CA. Welcome back everyone to the
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Brian Cromby Radio our Saga and six. We're talking with Brent Totter and today
a city planning expertise, the formerchief planner in the Bank. Before that,
he was with Calgary. Before that, he was in Ontario and he
came to Vankcougar. He came tosorry Mississauga last Wednesday to make a presentation
about the next fifty years in Mississauga. I want to turn Brent if I
could, to this cost of infrastructureCRISI that you mentioned, and I don't
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think it was something that a lotof people realize. I wonder if you
could explain it to us. Sowhat you were saying is that we've come
to the realization that suburban sprawl isfar more costly than dense urban development.
And I don't think a lot ofpeople sort of understood that. They thought
that. Frankly, the cities arewhere we're spending all the money, and
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what you're suggesting is really to Iguess to expand sewers and water and roads
and all that kind of stuff.It's the suburbs where we're spending in an
order amount of money. Well,in fact, we have known this for
a while, but it's almost seemedfor years. It's been well understood in
the profession since I started my careerthirty two years ago. But I got
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to tell you, it's been almoststrangely taboo for much of my career to
talk about it, because it's somehowwhile you're being mean to the suburbs and
by telling the truth about how muchthings actually cost. And that probably changed
about fifteen twenty years ago. Itactually started changing while I was at the
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City of Calgary, because I wasin charge of both inner city in phil
and suburban infill in Calgary, andCalgary was one of the very first cities
to do what was called the costof growth study, because the question was
does growth pay for itself? Oris growth being subsidized by the existing residents?
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And I remember the day I wasasked by a counselor that question,
does growth pay for itself? AndI said, that's a really important question,
but an even better question is whatkind of growth pays for itself and
what kind of growth doesn't. AndCalgary was one of the first cities to
do a cost of growth. Nowjust about every Canadian city has done it.
And I work around the world andCanada is actually a world leader in
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doing this kind of math. AndI often say that once you've done this
math, and once you've learned this, you can't unlearn it. Because if
you're not motivated by the climate emergencywhen it comes to better city making,
or the housing crisis, when itcomes to better city making, or public
health, or equity and classism,you're probably motivated by money because most people
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are, and you probably care howmuch you're paying in taxes. And the
truth has always been this, peoplein the suburbs think the city they are
somehow subsidizing the city. The oppositeis true. The more low density and
single use and cardependent you are,the more you are being subsidized. It's
essentially a city building socialism where yourtaxes are being kept low, artificially low,
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subsidized by the urban places, whichby far generate the highest tax income.
They are the taxation engines of acity in a city region. At
the same time, the per capitacosts of all the infrastructure, hard and
soft services much much lower in theinner city than they are in the suburbs.
And you know that our taxes aredone in a way it's based on
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how much your home is worth,not based on how much your home costs
to the public. So we havea very strange and perverse system of taxation.
So the places that actually cost lessfor the public are paying more in
taxes per square foot. It's apretty good deal for the suburbs, I
tell you. And if you livein the suburbs, you probably don't want
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to hear this, and you suredon't want it to change, because why
would you want to lose that socialismthat's helping you out. But that's the
truth. And more and more cities, about ten fifteen years ago cities started
saying, well, you know what, we're going to tell the truth about
it. If you want to say, but I like living in the suburbs,
well that's okay. You can saythat, but you also have to
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understand that you're being subsidized. Andif you do live in the suburbs.
What I tell to Mississauga Residence,If you live in the suburbs, and
then you want to stay living ina low density place, and you want
to keep driving your car, whichcosts way more per kilometer driven for the
public than any other way of gettingaround by far. So suburbs are subsidized
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and car driving is subsidized. Ifyou want to keep doing that, the
best thing you can hope for isfor your city government to approve more density
in the urban places, on publictransit and where people can walk and bike.
Because they are subsidizing you, theyare helping keep your taxes low.
That is just a mathematical fact.So when you talk about it that bluntly
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and honestly, you know people canstill say, well, but I like
the suburbs. Well, fair enough, you like the suburbs, you like
driving your car, But the peoplewho are subsidizing you have a right to
say say, well, but waita minute. At least, don't object
to density. At least, don'tobject to a bike lane that's actually saving
public money, not costing public money. At least, don't object to public
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transit, because those things are thethings that are actually generating the taxes that
actually allow your suburban car dependent lifestyleto be as low tax as it is.
And if you think your taxes aregoing up right now, they'd be
going up even more without those urbanplaces. But Brent, let's call a
spata spade. The reality is thoseneighborhoods do object. Sure, and you
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know you had not all the counselors, but numerous counselors in the audience on
Wednesday night, And they listen totheir residence because those residents are the squeaky
wheel, and they're the ones thatgo out and low turnout elections and vote,
and so the only way they cankeep their jobs is if they listen
to their residents. And those residents, by and large, probably aren't the
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people that you're in your session onWednesday who are more interested in the future.
They are the people that are complainingto residents meetings, at planning meetings,
at council meetings, et cetera,saying not in my backyard, don't
build that density here. I don'twant I want my suburban neighborhood to stay
the way it always has been.Well, I got to say, you're
right, but I got to saythe size of the crowd that came out
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got me curious, because it's that'sa much bigger crowd than the usual suspects
of city planner types, and anumber of people came up to me.
There's always a lot of people whowant to talk after the event is over.
And I got to tell you,a surprising number of people came up
to me and said, I've neverbeen to one of these before. I
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never really thought about any of this, but somebody, one of my neighbors,
said you should go to this,and so I did, and now
I'm really interested and I don't thinkI'm I'm going to be able to not
think about this anymore. And Isaid, that was about the nicest thing
you could say to me, becauseyou know that the actual goal, and
including having a conversation with you,is to get past the usual suspects who
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already know this stuff, to thebroader audience that is busy. They've got
better things to do with their timethan come out to a planning lecture.
They've got kids. I've got youngkids. So how do you get this
information out there? And it doesn'tmean it will change people's minds. Frankly,
to be blunt, there's a lotof self interest built into the existing
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commentary about change in cities. Peopledon't want it to change because they like
it the way that it is.And I just explained to you that they're
benefiting financially from the way that itis. So there's financial self interest there
too, although not in the waythey think their property values aren't going to
go down. That's what I alwayshear. That's not true. But frankly,
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you know they're being subsidized by theurban places in their tax and that
is true. So this is nevergoing to be an easy conversation. And
you know, I've never been toa single city, including Vancouver, including
Paris, including any city I've workedin around the world, where this conversation
is easy. But this conversation isnecessary everywhere. If we take sustainability in
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the climate emergency seriously, we've gotto think differently. If we take the
housing crisis srey, we've got tothink differently. If you want to be
justified and in criticizing the municipal taxincreases that you keep facing, you gotta
you gotta understand how this actually works. So, and I want to be
really really clear, Nothing I talkedto about says we're not going to do
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suburbs anymore. There's there's gonna besuburbs in Mississauga for much longer than you
and I are alive. But there'sa better way to do suburbs. There's
a better way to do the innercity. There's a better way. We're
doing better cars in the context ofthings like electric vehicles, But the answer
isn't just electric better cars. It'sgot to be less need to drive and
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more choices, more options and alternativesthat actually allow more people to move as
the city grows with less space andless public cost. That is the truth.
And what I always say is,if you want to live in the
suburb, you're still going to beable to and frankly, you're still probably
going to be subsidized. If youwant to drive your car, nobody's going
to stop you. But the bestthing you can hope for is that your
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neighbor on one side decides to getan ee bike, and your neighbor on
the other side decides to take publictransit, and the neighbor behind you decides
to walk. And they're only goingto do that if the infrastructure is there
to make that safe and enjoyable.And if they do that, that means
they're not in front of you,stuck in traffic fighting for the same amount
of finite space. What I talkabout works better for everyone. It works
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better for the city. From aneconomic development person, from a taxation perspective,
it works better for everyone, includingdrivers. Designing for cars works badly
for everyone, including drivers, becauseif everybody drives, nobody moves, that's
the traffic you're always stuck in becauseyou're not fighting for space with other people,
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you're fighting for space with their cars, and they're spending your public money,
they're generating the climate emergency, andthey're taking up all the space.
So the more people choose, notare forced to, but choose the other
things, the better it is foreveryone, including the people who are going
to keep choosing to drive. Sothis narrative about the so called war in
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the car is a lie. It'smanipulative, it's done. I know the
politicians who do it. I've workedwith politicians my entire career. They're lying
to get votes, they're lying toget you mad, or some in the
media are lying to get clicks,because hey, if it bleeds, it
leads. But the truth is,I'm talking about not anti car. I'm
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talking about pro smart city. I'mtalking about the difference between smart and dumb
cities. The cities that succeed orthe cities that fail. Well, you
know, if we if every singleperson that takes the Goat train to get
from Port Credit or Clarkson to getto downtown got on the Gardener Expressway and
the qu in a car today,there's no way that we could get there.
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It's the only way that that placeworks is by putting absolutely the only
way any of our cities than peopleon the transit works. That's I love
the math of it that you knowhere in Vancouver, the skytrain line replaces
I think it's eighteen lanes of trafficthat we could never build even if we
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wanted to, and if we didbuild it, it would be terrible for
the climate emergency, et cetera.And we may know a staggering amount more.
You may know a planner by thename of Joe Barrett, Oh yeah,
Strategies, And he came to aMississia City summit session that we had
about a day decade ago and said, Houston sort of the same size as
Toronto, not anymore, but wasat the time, and going into downtown
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Houston was forty lanes of freeway trafficgoing into downtown Toronto was twelve and he
said, not only is it thelanes, but it's all the parking,
so cars, pollution, parking,and lack of livable, walkable, enjoyable
city with all that, with allthat laneway space, I got to ask
you, though, you know we'retalking about density. We're not talking about
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density everywhere. The vast majority ofsuburbia is going to just stay the same
as and it's going to be justaround transit stations and on major arterials,
is it not, Well, we'renot talking about the same density everywhere.
As you know, Mississauga Council recentlypassed in order to get access to the
ACCE Housing Accelerator funding, they passedthe zoning that would allow up to four
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homes per lot. That's that's density. That's more homes on less land.
And that helps keep your school open, That helps keep your local shopping open
so that so it doesn't close andyou have to drive even further. It
certainly helps keep your taxes low,et cetera. So it's all beneficial.
But that's what I call gentle density. When I was having these conversations in
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Vancouver, I used terms like gentledensity to talk about row houses and semi
detasted houses and maybe four plexes orthree plexes. I talked about what I
called hidden density to talk about laneway houses that are tucked in behind and
access from a lane or a sidedrive. I talked about invisible density,
which is just another way of talkingabout secondary suites in your primary house.
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You can add homes options for peoplewhile relatively having relatively little change. And
my friend in California, Daniel Porolick, coined the term the missing middle housing,
and it's actually a better brand thanmy gentle density. I actually like
it better. But it's talking aboutthe housing types that are missing. If
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all we have are detached homes andapartments in mid rise or high rise buildings,
we're missing the option of all thoseother housing types that might allow the
aging couple to downsize in their neighborhoodwithout having to move to another neighborhood neighborhood.
Then they can give their primary houseto the kids and the grandkids,
which helps keeps the school open inthe neighborhood and means you don't only get
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to see your grandkids once a monthbecause they live way way out in the
suburbs, because they had to drivetill they qualify. You know, there's
all sorts of ways that it actuallymakes neighborhoods more diverse, more nimble.
It actually stabilizes neighborhoods from keeping theschool from closing, in this shopping from
closing. So we have this strangeidea that if we stop change, it'll
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protect our quality of life. Whenthe truth is change always happens, you
can't stop it, and often thechange that's happening isn't very good. The
population in your neighborhood is dropping,and your school might be under thread of
closure because they want to close thosethree schools and consolidate into a larger school
that you have to drive to.Change is constantly happening, and when you
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actually provide more choice in your neighborhood, then you can actually end up stabilizing
the thing you have, which isthe school that you can walk to or
the shopping that you can walk to. But I tell you all this to
answer your question. That's the kindof density we expect to see inside the
neighborhoods in the suburbs. On theedges of the neighborhoods in the suburbs,
you might see the plaza convert tosomething that might be eight er or eight
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stories or so and have ground floorretailing. Around the transit, you're going
to have more density and more height. In the downtown, you're going to
have even more. It's not aone size fits all. You take a
smart, strategic approach to your density. You tie it to where the infrastructure
is in place, where people canget around without the car, and you
take a very smart and fine grainedapproach to density. Doesn't mean you're going
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to try to put tall buildings everywhere, but there's very few places that can
just say no, we don't wantto change, we like it exactly the
way that it is. And evenif you could say that successfully, it's
not necessarily in your best interest becauseguess what, your school might be under
threat of closure because you don't havekids in your neighborhood anymore. So it's
it's change is an fascinating thing incities. People think they can prevent it.
(32:19):
Often all they end up doing ispreventing a kind of change that's well
managed and actually, you know,protect some of the things they like in
their neighborhood. We're turning today withBrent Totterin, who came to Mississaga just
last week to talk about the nextfifty years in Mississago. It is really
quite a fascinating presentation. We wouldtake a break for some messages and come
back in just two minutes with Brent. Stay with us, everybody, no
(32:45):
radio, no problem. Stream islive on SAGA nine sixty AM dot C.
A welcome back everyone to the BrianCromby Radiohere we're on SAGA nine sixty.
My guest Canada is Brent Totter andwho came to Mississauga just last week
(33:08):
to a presentation of the Living NightsCenter to talk about the next fifty years
in Mississauga and really I think challengea lot of us in regards to the
type of city that we are buildingthat we want to build in the future.
And it was about nine hundred people, over nine hundred people that came.
It was a good crowd, andI think you did a good job,
Brent, of really raising people's awarenessand asking a lot of questions.
(33:30):
Let me ask you a few questionsif I could you know one of the
things about the urban plan in Mississaugatoday is the height's spost to be downtown
and then it's suppot to be lesshigh everywhere else around the city. I
think one of the reasons why thatwas put in place is because frankly,
around Square one there weren't a lotof neighbors. There weren't you know,
established neighborhoods, and so therefore itwas far easier to get things approved.
(33:52):
Toronto was different. Toronto did haveyou know, the height around Young Street
and Blur and Young, et cetera. But as now allowing height in a
lot of other places North York,Scarborough, Cloverdale, Western Road, you
know, down in Humber Bay,et cetera. Uh, And right now
there's a there's there's a question shouldthere be tall towers uh in other areas
(34:15):
around Go train stations, other majornodes, or should you try to keep
all that height and density in indowntown and and and connected to that,
the downtown's really not a true downtownbecause it doesn't have a lot of offices.
You know, it's primarily residential anda shopping center. Uh. And
so it's not the kind of mixtuse downtown that a lot of other downtowns
have. So question is should allthe height and density be in one spot
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or can you spread it out andhave it in other nodes. Well,
first of all, your your MississaugaPlan has already answered that question. You
don't need me to come to townto tell you to do something different.
And by the way, I wantI want your your listeners to to understand
the truth. I didn't just cometo town to do a talk. My
(34:59):
talk was part of work I'm doingwith the City of Mississauga. I've actually
been advising the city for about sixmonths and it's an ongoing thing. I'm
providing them advice on a lot ofthings. So I'm part of these conversations
about the planning for the city.The plan you already have been working on
calls for density in places other thanthe downtown. The downtown is probably going
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to be for as long as allof us are alive the tallest. There
are no height limits in the downtownnow, and that's why there's very tall
buildings. And it's not just becauseit's an easy place to get height,
because no one's complaining. It's becausethat's an important place to have what I
call body heat, the population densitythat can create these interrelationships between the different
(35:45):
elements and pieces of the puzzle ofa good downtown. You're quite right.
How do I say this, Mississauga'sdowntown was one of the very first in
Canada that actually tried to create abrand new downtown out of a former suburban
place a shopping center, and youbecame an inspiration to other cities and all
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those other places you're talking about inToronto. Remember those places were originally suburbs
before they were annex's part of thecity of Toronto. They were places like
Mississauga that didn't have a downtown andthey were sort of trying to create one.
And across all of the GTA,you can't swing a stick without hitting
a suburb that's trying to create areel downtown. And what I say is
(36:34):
it's hard to create a real downtownfrom a suburban place. And when I'm
working for cities that are trying todo it, I say, are you
trying to create a real urban placeor are you just trying to create a
much higher density suburb. And whatI mean by that is Mississauga still made
their downtown mostly about the car,and downtowns are not mostly about cars.
(36:55):
They're not, but the Mississauga scale, we're still scaled to the car.
The LRT wasn't there yet, youknow, they're and still isn't there yet,
but it's coming. So it's mostlyabout cars. And you didn't even
have very many things to walk betweenand walk to know it was mostly about
cars. You made the comment onWednesday that you know, walking around Square
(37:16):
one around the downtown of Mississauga,it is not franctly easy, and it's
it's not the nicest thing. Butwe do have places that are like that.
I'm not sure in your in yoursix months and working in Mississauga,
if you've had the chance to walkthrough Port Credit or walk streets. But
we've got some beautiful villages and mainstreets in those villages with great restaurants and
(37:36):
bars and and and local boutiques andshops and things like that. But they're
struggling, and they're struggling because ofCOVID, they're struggling because of competition with
them alls uh, and they're strugglingbecause of competition with with Square One in
downtown. And they're struggling because they'rein a car dependent city, because that
means they are dependent on people gettingto them, and the constant conversation is
(38:00):
about where will they park right,And so they're in a city that where
the assumption is if you're going togo anywhere, you're going to do it
by car, and there's not muchdensity around them to provide that walkable body
heat. And so that's the questionI want to ask you. You know,
people have struggled. How do wemake sure that Port Credit and Streetsville,
And there's other areas as well,but those are the two I want
to talk about don't die and they'revibrant in the future. Some people say,
(38:23):
don't have change. Other people say, no, build that density and
add some more people. What's youranswer, Well, you've made the point.
They're struggling. They're going to change, whether you like it or not.
Do you want them to succeed?Do you want them to survive?
You can maintain the heritage character places, but around them in a walkable distance,
(38:43):
you should have body heat. Andit doesn't have to be the same
kind of body heat as downtown.It probably shouldn't be, but you need
the body heat that has people thatcan strengthen that village character because there's people
there and they can get there withoutyou having to worry about parking. That
is the key. So all thosehistoric places that that got gobbled up by
(39:06):
the suburbs as the suburbs grew,they predated in many cases the suburbs.
That's why they've got that village characterin charm. Sometimes they they now need
the body heat that actually will keepthem alive in the in the modern economy.
So that's why we're talking about differentkinds of density in different kinds of
places. There's probably density everywhere,but it's strategic density of different kinds in
(39:30):
different places, and the point ofit is to create walkable body heat transit
support. If you've got the bikeinfrastructure, which you don't yet but you're
need you're going to need to have, then you've got the biking support too.
And yes you have the car,but you're not dependent on the car
for those places to survive all ofthat. You know, this is there's
(39:52):
nothing simple about what I'm talking about. It's like three dimensional chess. And
yet we usually have a very overlysimplistic commercation about yes or no. I
like density, I don't like it. But you're trying to maintain ecosystems and
keep them alive and thriving in partsof your city that are very complex,
(40:12):
and so the conversation is hard.The decisions that council makes are hard.
The narrative from the NIMBI discourse isoften very overly simplistic, and so when
I challenge cities, I'm challenging theirstaff to do a better job of communicating
all of this, because we somehowmake inherently interesting cities mind numbingly boring when
(40:36):
we talk about them. It's remarkablehow boring my profession of city planning usually
is. And I challenge politicians tonot just listen to the loudest people who
have said that they've been here whole, their whole life and they don't want
it to change at all. BecauseMississauga is an incredibly diverse city. It's
(40:57):
one of the most diverse cities inCanada, and that's just increasing and frankly,
for cities to survive from a taxationperspective, et cetera, you need
young people working, you need youngpeople paying taxes. Young people can't live,
young people can't afford to live inMississity. Young people are moving to
Georgetown and Dallaston and Brantford because youngpeople can live to live in the same
(41:20):
cities that their parents raised them inbecause we're not providing the housing options.
But that's what this whole conversation isabout we're talking about We're not talking about
turning Mississauga into Toronto. We're nottalking about turning Mississauga into Vancouver. We're
not talking about turning it into anythingexcept a better version of itself. Because
(41:42):
how Mississauga was in the past whenthe baby boomers were all working, because
we're all going through a democrat ademographic crisis too. How Mississauga worked when
the baby boomers were all working isnot how Mississauga can work when the baby
boomers are all retired. Okay,so it just doesn't work that way.
I got ask you, Brent,is the problem here the people or is
(42:04):
it the planners and the city councilors. You know stats Canada and analysis that
said that Canada is one of theslowest countries in the world to approve zoning
changes, building permits, et cetera, and that in that Toronto, Misissaga
and Victoria are the worst defenders.I think Vancouver is up there as well,
in all of Canada, the slowestto actually approve building permits and zoning
(42:28):
changes, and you know the redtape and regulation. Some people thinks it
takes longer twice as long to getsomething approved as it is to actually build
it, Isn't that the problem?That's certainly a big part of the problem,
a big part of the challenge.You know, you can. I've
heard I've heard people blame it onNimbi's I've heard people blame it on politicians
(42:50):
for not having the political bravery todo the right thing when they know better
just to keep their jobs. Asyou said, and by the way,
I don't even buy that narrative.I've seen brave politicians who are good communicators
do something that isn't necessarily popular,but they challenge their own voters to understand
why this is really hard, andguess what, they get it re elected.
(43:13):
So there's a lazy narrative that says, you know, if I do
anything except mindlessly obey the misinformed perspectivesof city change, I will lose my
job. You know that's not truein my experience, and I've been doing
this for a long time. SoI think we all have to challenge ourselves
to first of all, understand thefacts. The point of Wednesday night was
(43:37):
to start a conversation in Mississauga thatfrankly doesn't exist here, but that exists
in a lot of other cities whereyou're talking about the truth of city building,
why city building is so hard,and why we need a fundamental conversation
about how to do it differently,because the status quo isn't working because people
(43:57):
are out there saying I want toI want to have responsible change to mitigate
climate emergency, and my kids doneed housing and it's too expensive and they
can't live here. And by theway, I don't like my taxes rising
and all of this, and yetas soon as the things are proposed that
would improve those they fight against thembecause there is a fundamental disconnect. Maybe
(44:21):
it's a lack of understanding. Maybepeople do know and they don't care,
but you've got to have that conversationin cities. In my experience around the
world, I was asked on Wednesdaynight, you may recall what's the one
thing that cities that are doing thisbetter have, or what's the one thing
you would start with, Brent,if cities want to do better? And
(44:42):
my answer was various versions of thebetter conversation the cities that are doing better.
You can't swing a stick on agiven weeknight without some conversation about better
city building, whether it's about housing, or transportation, or social equity,
or climate change or what have you. It's just constant and ubiquitous. The
media is constantly talking about it.It's just an ubiquitous conversation about why the
(45:08):
status quo isn't necessarily working for everyone, even though it might be you might
think it's working for you. Ifyou don't have that conversation, when something
gets proposed, like a tall buildingor a bike lane, it tends to
be this blood bath of angry people. So It's Wednesday was a start.
(45:30):
It was a start to try tocreate something that is the constant conversation,
the challenging conversation that isn't easy,but it's truth telling in an era where
we need to be blunt. Andas I started my talk on Wednesday,
I'm known for my bluntness. Well, I think that the bluntness was well
(45:51):
called for because I think there's alot of people on city council and planning
in Mississauga that need to hear whatyou've got to say. That's just no
question about it. We're going totake a break, a final break,
and come back with some concluding commentswith Ben Brent Toddan in just two minutes,
stay with us. Everybody stream uslive at SAGA nine to sixty am
(46:13):
dot CA. Welcome back everyone tothe Brian Crum your radio WI. We're
on SAGA N't sixteen chatting right nowwith Brent Totterin. He's a city planning
expert, used to be the chiefcity planner in Vancouver, made a name
(46:34):
for himself there before that, Calgarybefore that, Ontario, and now he's
got his city planning consulting company.He's come to Mississauga to help us figure
out the next fifty years of Mississauga. Brent, I got to ask you,
you know, we had in Mississaugathis downtown vision twenty twenty one.
It was pretty exciting, but notmuch happened and the streets that were laid
out and the visioning that was theredidn't happen. So, you know,
(46:58):
what good is what you're doing?What good is this whole planning process will
ever come to pass when we buildthis city? You know, where should
we point the fingers as to who'snot doing their job? Well, I
don't know. It's about doing thejob because, as we pointed out,
it's very hard for planners to getplans realized when the politicians are listening to
(47:21):
the community that doesn't want to changemore than they're listening to the planners.
And I think that is very trueof Mississauga. For as long as I've
been a planner. I remember thirtytwo years ago when I started my career.
I remember the reputation of Mississauga atthat time, and I got to
tell you, the reputation was,if you're a good planner that wants to
do important work, don't go toMississauga. That I'm being really blunt so
(47:45):
because it's because it's status quo.They're just going to listen to the folks
that don't want any change, andyou're not going to be able to change
much. What is it? Politicalleadership all about knowing where you've got to
go in the future and trying tolead people there. Well, you know,
it's funny. As I said,I've worked with hundreds of politicians,
and there's politicians who know that sometimesthe most important things you will do are
(48:08):
the unpopular things, but they arethe things that it's your job to not
just go with the wind, butteach your people. Listen but also teach.
That's what leaders do. It's notleadership when you're only doing what they
tell you to do, that's,by definition, is following. So there
(48:30):
are leaders that know that you haveto challenge the status quo and it's your
job to be persuasive and to makethe case. And then there's others who
say, no, I was electedto do whatever my constituents say. And
let's be honest, what that reallymeans is what the loudest constituents who do
most of the talking say. Becausemost of the people in our communities almost
(48:52):
never get involved in this, whydo we elect a politician? Why don't
we just hire a pulling firm?Yeah, well I literally heard that suggested.
But here's my point. I thinkif we have a better conversation about
that's truth based as opposed to fakenews based, and challenge ourselves with a
(49:14):
better job of connecting the dots,because I know that Canadians care about the
housing crisis, the climate crisis,et cetera. But often the whole process,
the whole conversation, doesn't connect thedots. You know, It's like
saying I want to get in shape, but I don't. I refuse to
eat better, exercise, or evergo to my doctor. You know,
(49:36):
we've got to connect the dots.Between the thing you say you want and
what it would take to actually achieveit. One of the things I do
with cities when I first start workingwith them is I find the thing that
they say they want to achieve.I showed that on Wednesday Kingston when I
started working for them, and saidthey want to become the most sustainable city
in Canada. And I said,all right, let's talk about what it
(49:58):
would really take to achieve that.Gwelf when I started working for them,
said we want to drop our percapita greenhouse gas emissions by sixty three percent
by twenty thirty in eight years.And I said, based on what you're
actually doing right now, it wouldtake till twenty fifty or never. So
let's have a conversation about it whatit would really take. That's not my
(50:22):
vision. I'm not telling them whatthe vision should be. I'm telling them
the truth that there is a fundamentaldisconnect between what you claim, you say
you want to achieve and what you'reactually doing. And so that's a challenge
for the politicians, it's a challengefor the city planners who have to be
more follow through oriented, not justplan making, but action, and we
(50:42):
have to act like we're in anemergency. We have to act like this
is a crisis. And so farmost of our city halls are still going
the same speed. So often mywork with cities is sometimes it's new ideas,
sometimes it's different ideas. Often it'sjust take this thing you say you
are gonna do, but instead ofdoing it in twenty seven years, you
(51:05):
do it in three because that's whatyou do in an emergency. I think
we're in an emergency. I thinkthat you're completely right. It was interesting
you did a poll and people saidthat the cost of living was the biggest
issue facing Mississia residence today, whichis not just housing affordability because we had
a housing crisis, but it's everythingassociated with the cost to actually live today.
(51:27):
And I think transportation is a reallybig cost in our life, and
I think we need to do abetter job in that regard, and I
think you challenged us all to thinka little bit about that, and so
I really appreciate you coming to townand challenging Ess. I got to tell
you, I happened to be Vancouverright now and had the pleasure of walking
around the city and seeing some ofthe developments that you've built here in Vancouver
(51:49):
and walked along you know, DavanDenman, and saw the density that's in
behind beautiful retail strips that are verylive with that, you know, the
heat that you talked about, thepopulations around that, and some of the
developments in False Creek, et cetera. I think we could learn a lot
from what you've done here in Vancouver. Helps that you've got the big,
beautiful Stanley Park. By the way, We've got a huge park in downtown
(52:12):
Mississauga that's just as big, maybenot a Stanley Park, but a central
park. And it's not developed,it's not contiguous, it's not known,
and so I think there's a lotwe could learn from you and from Vancouver.
I appreciate you coming to town.That's our show. I'll just say
I think cities can learn from allcities, and I do not come to
town saying do what Vancouver did.I think. I think there's a lot
(52:37):
of cities that Mississauga can learn from. But I also am really excited because,
as I said, Mississauga was oneof the first cities that tried to
do a suburban downtown. So Ithink Mississauga in ten years we could be
talking about what Mississauga has been teachingNorth American cities instead of just learning.
But the truth is it's always both. You're always teaching, you're always learning.
(52:58):
That's our show for tonight, everybody, thank you very much for joining
us. Brent to really appreciate it. You're uh you I think are going
to have a positive impact on Mississaugaand probably a lot of other cities.
Appreciate it. Thanks my pleasure.Connect everybody, no radio, no problem.
Stream us live on SAGA nine sixtyam dot c a